There Are No Girls on the Internet - DISINFORMED: Slowing down on Social Media

Episode Date: February 13, 2021

In this week’s episode, Pen America’s Nora Benavidez talked about how slowing down on social media is a concrete step anyone can take to curb disinformation. Even the most extremely online can get fooled into sharing inaccurate information online. On this short mini ep, host Bridget talks about the time she shared something dubious.That Viral Tweet About Suicide Rates in the Pandemic Is Wrong and Dangerous: https://slate.com/technology/2020/11/whats-actually-happening-with-suicide-during-the-pandemic.htmlBest Practices and Recommendations for Reporting on Suicide: https://reportingonsuicide.org/recommendations/Listen to Nora’s full episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/disinformed-is-kicking-trump-off-twitter-censorship/id1520715907?i=1000508392273Questions? Comments? Just wanna say jambo? Hit us up at [e-mail] support? The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is here for you 24/7:https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/800-273-8255 Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey y'all, quick heads up. This episode deals with suicide. You're listening to Disinformed, a mini-series from There Are No Girls on the Internet. I'm Bridget Todd. On this week's episode of Disinformed, we heard from Nora Benevitas, free speech attorney and the director of U.S. re-expressions programs at Penn America Foundation. Now, as much as we talk about the steps platforms could be taking to keep inaccurate information from spreading online, Nora, who runs digital literacy training programs, really highlighted the role that individuals can play in curbing its spreads. Her number one tip was that we all just slow down when we're online. Instead of smashing that retweet on things without really thinking it through.

We should all start asking ourselves how we feel when we're online. Like, are you feeling anxious? When you read things, are you angry? A lot of times disinformation will thrive because we're emotional. And we often want to share things. We want to engage with people quickly. And so we'll accept something without fact checking it, without thinking about or asking ourselves, you know, who wrote this?

Where did it come from? Why am I seeing it? So if you can just sort of pause, like that is my number one recommendation. Pause to ask a number of things, but just pause. And from slowing down, I think we actually could all benefit. Just this week, I was leading a disinformation workshop and somebody asked me if I had ever shared something that wasn't totally accurate online. And the answer is, of course I have. In fact, every disinformation researcher, activist, advocate, or experts that I've ever talked to

has admitted to getting fooled by false information on social media at least once. Seriously, it happens to the best of us. And even the extremely online are still susceptible. Now, it's easy to think about the spread of inaccurate information as something that other people are doing. But it really warrants us all taking a closer look at our online behavior. Yes, even me. Not just thinking about the problematic social media behavior of others. And that can be really tough sometimes because, like,

says, news, news stories on social media, it's all wrapped up in our quick emotional responses to things. Think of the way that Facebook even spells this out what they're like, love, care reactions. And it's hard to think through your emotional responses to things, especially when you're quickly scrolling your social media feed. But a little mindfulness can go a long way. So this is the story about the last time that I shared something that wasn't true on social media. The tweet seemed innocuous enough. A friend, somebody I trusted in no one real life, posted suicide figures are up 200% since the lockdown started. Could two followers please copy and repost this tweet?

We're trying to demonstrate that someone is always listening. Call 1-800-273-8255, the number for the suicide prevention hotline. Now, demonstrating that someone is always there for you and giving people a resource they might need during a quarantine, why not share it? So I did. I spent maybe all of five seconds thinking about it. I do recall feeling pretty smugly pleased with myself that I was dedicating a whole tweet to providing resources to others, which pretty much made me feel like a modern-day Twitter

saint, until I got my first reply. And could you believe it? It was from somebody not praising me for being so altruistic, but actually calling me out for spreading inaccurate information. I know you mean well, the tweet said, but what's the source for this? This figure doesn't sound right to me. I need to say that I am not proud of my initial snap reaction, but I want to let you know where my head was at. My first response was, who does this guy think he is trying to call me out like this. You know, I felt kind of attacked and a little bit dragged, so I was definitely on the defensive. Then I thought, well, I'm trying to share something helpful, even if this figure isn't exactly accurate, it could still be a helpful resource for somebody

who needs it. But the more I thought about it, the worse I felt, so I did a little digging. It turns out he was right. An article on factcheck.org said the figure about suicides being up 200% isn't corroborated by any actual data. In fact, at the time when I tweeted this, data about suicide figures under quarantined hadn't really started being collected yet. The tweet had gone viral in both the UK and the U.S., but the hotline numbers swapped out. So it wasn't even aiming to paint a portrait of suicide figures in one specific country. Pretty dubious. Okay, but is sharing and accurate information like this really that bad?

The sentiment could still be helpful, right? I did some more digging. I found a piece in slate by Shannon Paul's. That viral tweet about suicide rates in the pandemic is wrong and dangerous. And in it, she makes a really good point. First of all, that tweet is designed to be alarming, and connecting a dubious rise in suicide with COVID lockdown provisions is not a neutral statement.

It goes against media recommendations for responsibly reporting on suicide because it presents suicide as a common or acceptable response to hardship and speculates on the reason for suicides while misrepresenting the actual data. A rise in suicide has also been used as a political argument against COVID lockdown measures. Trump even claimed in March that there would be, quote, suicide by the thousands if lockdown continued. So not quite the innocuous, helpful message I intended to share in my feed. And maybe if I had spent more than five seconds thinking about it before posting, I would have seen that.

So why am I telling you this? Well, the fact is, even though we spend a lot of time focusing on big-time conspiracy theorists, you do not need to be fully down a Q&on rabbit hole to share bad information online. It happens to the best of us. And if we all just spent a little more time thinking about our online behavior, and, as Nora says, slowing down a bit, it could have a big impact. We don't need to wait for platforms to build in the tools to curb the spread of inaccurate information on social media, even though they should, to be clear. It can start with us.

And people deserve accurate information. People deserve the truth. If you enjoyed this podcast, please help us grow by subscribing. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? We'd love to hear from you at hello at tangoity.com. Disinformed is brought to you by There Are No Girls on the Internet. It's a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.

Tari Harrison is our supervising producer and engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. For more great podcasts, check out the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.